Lee Sinje Premieres 'Dead Tide,' Preps Directing Debut 'Wanita' at Pingyao

Malaysian actor Lee Sinje co-wrote and co-produced "Dead Tide," which world-premiered in the Hidden Dragons competition at the 10th Pingyao Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon International Film Festival. She also sits on the jury of the festival's Crouching Tigers international competition.

What is "Dead Tide"?

Directed by Kethsvin Chee, the film is a bleak story of a sudden romance between a woman driven to madness by abuse and a man just released from prison. Chee co-wrote the script with Lee. The project earlier won the La Fonte Award at the Hong Kong-Asia Film Financing Forum (HAF).

Lee and Chee first collaborated in 2023, when each directed an episode of the education documentary series "Dear Child, How Are You?"

"The origin of the story is the director, of course," Lee tells Variety.

How did the collaboration take shape?

Lee was drawn in by Chee's passion for filmmaking and his earnestness. She drew on memories of growing up in a small Malaysian town, where she watched people with mental illness struggle without access to medical care.

"I felt for these people who were trapped in the mental prison," she says. "So when this story came, I realized it could be a great opportunity to talk about them."

Chee says he absorbed much of Lee's advice at the script stage, along with her challenges.

"Sometimes we wrote from night until early morning, scrapping the previous draft and restarting," he tells Variety. "She led me like my tutor."

Lee describes her screenwriter role as "just to assist [Chee] to refine it, adding layers to the protagonists. We balanced each other very well." The two never fought, she adds, and she plans to use her resources to nurture more new Malaysian talent.

What about her directorial debut?

Lee's first feature as director, "Wanita" – Malay for "woman" – finished shooting shortly before Pingyao. Oxide Pang edited the film in parallel with the shoot. Now in post-production, with no AI assistance, the film targets completion by next spring, in time for festival submissions.

Lee co-wrote "Wanita" with Malaysian writer Ang Siew Hoong. She weighed two stories for her debut.

"One was my own story, the other is about other women," Lee says. "I chose the other women's story because I think it's very important to [speak] up for them. They have difficulties and I hope that I can create some awareness [for] the new generation's women to make a change."

Why did she wait to direct?

Directing has been Lee's dream since her 20s. She has written four or five scripts, but the decision took years.

"It's also struggling [because] I'm a, you know, experienced actress and I have some reputation in this industry," she says. "So, there must be fears and struggles when I wanted to start a new position."

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Lee read Abbas Kiarostami's books and found courage in them. "Men just take action, so that's why I made the decision," she says.

Does she plan to keep telling women's stories?

Lee says she doesn't set out to tell only women's stories, aiming instead for convincing, nuanced characters.

"At least for my first or second [feature], I still focus on women's issues," she says. "It's something to do with my own growth and life experience. But every time when I write about a female story, it gives me an opportunity to really delve [into myself]. And I've always tried to balance the existence between female and male characters in my story."

What comes next?

After the festival closes on Sept. 30, Lee returns to theater in Edward Lam's musical "The Xue Baochai Moments," adapted from "Dream of the Red Chamber." It runs in Hong Kong Nov. 13–15. In December, she heads back to Malaysia to star in a horror film.

Of her jury duty at Pingyao, Lee says: "It's very important to know how [new filmmakers] tell stories, keeping me updated with the business' newest vision. There were quite a few experimental films this year that broke the traditional method of storytelling, and they helped open my mind, too."

With "Wanita" set for a spring 2026 finish and a stated commitment to nurture new Malaysian talent, Lee is positioning herself not only as a screen presence but as a producer-director shaping the country's next wave of cinema.